The Non-Fundamental Rule:
Persistence of a Fatal Category Error 

Dr. Boesky will discuss the fateful consequences of our persistent confusion about the status of the “Fundamental Rule”. He will highlight the complexities of psychic determinism as an organizing criterion for the inference of unconscious meaning because of the essential link between the associations of the patient and the contextual matrix of these associations. The manifest content of these associations was mistakenly privileged in the original fundamental rule. Thus, the patient was entitled to feel that her secrets were a sign of interpersonal “resistance” directed at the prying analyst. Gradually, analysts stopped insisting that the patient obey this rule and began to convey the requirements of a working alliance in which the patient and analyst share responsibility in a partnership of curiosity. Everything the patient says would have to be sifted through the contextual filters deployed by the analyst. Thus, the omnipresent problem of epistemology emerged with greater clarity: anything could be said to mean anything. Analysts moved on to establish credible theoretic alternatives but have too often done so by throwing out the entire bath of “free” associations together with the baby of saturated meanings embedded in those associations. A preliminary alternative strategy is to focus our listening attention on the defensively altered and hidden contexts of the emergence of these associations. Attention can then be directed to the hidden affective conflicts of the latent contexts rather than the manifest contents of the associations of the patient. Clinical examples will be used to illustrate these issues.

 

 

PRESENTER: DALE BOESKY, MD

2.0 CE/CME credits available

No Charge for PCOP Members, Students, and Fellows*
No Charge for Full-Time Students, Interns, and Residents (no CEs available)
$50 for Non-Members Seeking Credit
$20 for Non-Members not Seeking Credit

*If you are a PCOP member whose membership category does not include receiving continuing education credits, please pay the fee for non-members seeking credit. 

 

There is an optional dinner that will be held before this event. If you are interested in attending, please contact Ariel Slotter at 215-235-2345 by EOD Monday, March 20.

 

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